After rising to $6,700 on September 27, the price of Bitcoin has slightly retraced to $6,500. Ripple (XRP) still recorded a decent gain of 5 percent, extending its momentum.

The volume of the crypto market has increased from $13 billion to $15 billion in the past week, demonstrating an increase in activity in the market.

Interestingly, in the past 24 hours, the volume of Ethereum (ETH) has risen quite substantially to $2.2 billion. Last week, the volume of ETH hovered at around $1.3 billion.

Strengthening Volume

In September, especially over the past two weeks, the crypto market has shown recovery in its daily trading volume. Generally, the cryptocurrency exchange market has seen more activity in the past week than it did in the first half of September, most likely as the crypto market experienced a strong corrective rally following large losses recorded by Ethereum and Ripple.

For Bitcoin, the next two weeks could be crucial and it could determine the price trend of the dominant cryptocurrency for the rest of the year. Since February, in a two-month basis, Bitcoin has shown the tendency of record lower highs after dipping to a lower low.

However, since early 2018, each time Bitcoin bounced back from a lower low in the region of $5,800 to $6,500, it showed less momentum on the upside. In February, April, June, August, and September, Bitcoin rebounded to $11,000, $10,000, $9,000, $8,000 and $7,000, with every attempt to break out of a major resistance level declining in volume and momentum.

As such, Josh Rager, a well-recognized technical analyst in the cryptocurrency community, stated that the price trend of Bitcoin in the next two weeks will determine its mid-term trend.

“BTC with each passing month it’s taken less time to reach the ’lower high.’ The next two weeks will bring to higher highs (pushing out of bear market). Or will send BTC in a cold dark bear winter that last months BTC doesn’t have long to choose it’s path,” he explained.

For the first time in September, on Friday, BTC matched the intensity of other major cryptocurrencies in its movement to the upside. But, with a 4 percent gain, it fell short in breaking out of the $6,800 resistance level, which CCN emphasized in its previous reports as an important mark to surpass for Bitcoin to eye an entrance into the $7,000 region.

Where Does the Market go Next?

Ripple and Ethereum, both of which recorded fairly large gains in the past seven days, have recorded an increase in volume and value in the past 24 hours despite the negative state of the market.

The sudden increase in the volume of Ethereum, from $1.5 billion to $2.2 billion, suggests that the activity around ETH has abruptly increased in the past few days that may translate to a short-term rise in the price of ETH.

It could also indicate a build up on the sell-pressure of ETH and the short-term trend of the asset will demonstrate what the increase in volume of Ethereum will translate to in the upcoming days.